Before Governor Brown signed AB 1522, about 39 percent of the state’s labor force earned no paid sick leave benefits. As a result many workers faced two undesirable options when ill: Stay home and lose pay, or show up to work and expose others,

Politics is the art of compromise. On this note, Capital & Main asked Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) about the removal of 365,000 In Home Support Service (IHSS) workers from Assembly Bill 1522, the paid sick leave bill she authored. (See “Landmark Sick Leave Law Signed.”) The measure, signed into law September 10, grants this employment benefit to 6.5 million private-sector workers statewide. It takes effect on July 1, 2015. IHSS workers help the disabled and elderly with their daily household and medical needs. According to the Economic Policy Institute, nationally 93 percent of such workers are female, with 27 percent of them Hispanic and 18 percent African American.

“At the end of the day,” Assemblywoman Gonzalez said, “we were forced to take that specific group out. “It was a condition of having the bill signed by Governor Brown. His view is that IHSS workers are in the middle of statewide bargaining,

According to the Sacramento Bee, “The Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees abandoned the bill after it was rewritten to exempt home health-care workers.”